Bonus Ride

Well we had the first mechanical of trip with regards to the RV. I had found one of the tires on the rv rather low before we left from fruita and pumped it up. This morning I discovered that it was pretty much totally flat. The plan was to empty the waste tanks to lessen the load of jacking up the rv along and bring in the slideout, the flat was on the back side. The truck has a 4 ton bottle jack that I was planning on using to get the axel up and the tire off but as we were getting things together, the nice gentleman across the road from us came over and offered us the use of his 20 ton bottle jack. Although I was 99% sure the 4 ton would work, the 20 ton made lifting it effortless. The biggest issue was just getting the jack back to the middle axel of the triple. So we got it off and into town, the first place was closed on the weekends but the place across the street was open so we rolled it over there. Turns out the only issue was the valve stem needed tightening and they didn’t even charge us. By the time we got back and the wheel on, Howie made the decision that it was really too late to bother getting started on the long trip back so we decided to head over to the Monarch Crest Trail and stay another night here. This starts at the Monarch Pass, about 11,200 feet and follows the Continental Divide Trail that crosses there. Normally the rides here are done as shuttles, with a vehicle left at the bottom of the valley at any number of finishing points but with our lack of planning and only one vehicle we had to “settle” for an out and back on this amazing piece of track. It starts with a bit of a gravel road climb then about three quarters of a mile of bench cut before a half mile grunt up a rather rutted gravel road but then its pretty much single track heaven for the next eight miles. You end up climbing/descending 1000 feet each way for a total of 2000 feet of climbing over 19 miles. Most of it is at or near tree line so the vista/ views are incredible.

In a number of spots you see the ribbon of single track just laying out before you, at one point I sort of measured and you could see the track over a half mile ahead of you. The last couple miles before the turn around were through forested benchcut, rather rocky and rooty and included a skree field that puts anything in Pennsylvania to shame. We ate our fluffer nutter sandwiches then started back. The climb up through the trees was not nearly as bad as we had thought it would be as it was so much fun coming down through them, it seemed like it had to be steeper than it was. Across more ribbons of alpine meadowed single track and we hit the one section we were dreading, it was a loose steep downhill the first time, motorcycles are allowed on the trail and have beat this part up pretty bad. So it was a quarter mile of mostly hike a bike, but all in all not bad. Then off we were across more amazing single track with the views in the opposite direction from earlier. Too soon we rounded the last turn and we caught sight of the parking area where the Beast lay. Another mile and half or so and our western riding was at an end. There is a private “visitor’s center” there and I went in to use the restroom and thought howie was following but when I came out, still no howie so I got some ice cream and went looking for him. I figured he went to use up the last of film in the film camera as the sun was going down and the lighting was good. As I walked out though, I realized they were closing up so I hoped his shots were good as they cost him the potential to get ice cream.

Back in Gunnison we stopped at Garlic Mike’s, a place recommended by Russ at the office who had stopped there a number of years ago when he was out here. It lived up to his recommendation, most excellent Italian food.